Middle Orient

While prospects for actual conflict use are slim, Belgrade hopes that by buying Israeli weapons it can alleviate some of the pressure it may face from Washington over Kosovo and ties with Russia and China. Israel’s defense industry just added another buyer to its list. Speaking to the Serbian national …

It was evident in the meeting in Moscow between Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that the two countries do not see eye to eye on the Iranian nuclear agreement and Syria. On an official visit to Moscow, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid warned Sept. 9 …

A meeting of Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian ministers seems to have cracked Syria’s isolation. Four Arab countries have agreed on a road map to supply Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria during a ministerial meeting in Amman on Sept. 8. They also approved a plan to …

The members of the Dutch Parliament found out that official Hague was providing aid to the so-called Sultan Murad division. “Open sources indicate that the ‘division,’ per the UN data, was recruiting teenagers, arming them and dispatching them to fight,” Maria Zakharova pointed out Dutch authorities will have to explain …

Syrian army units backed by Iranian-backed militias resumed the shelling of a rebel enclave in southern Syria on Sunday after the collapse of Russia-brokered deal to allow the government to reinstate full control over the area. Russian generals brokered the deal late on Tuesday to avert bloody urban warfare after …

Back in early May of 2020 Israel’s Interior minister urged ‘soul-searching’ in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community citing the very high coronavirus infection rate [60-70% of the sick in the entire country were ultra-Orthodox whereas only 10-12 percent of the general population is ultra-Orthodox]. Now in early September 2021only some 20 …

On July 10, 2020, Turkey’s high administrative court annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that had turned Istanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia mosque into a museum, dealing a further blow to the secularist legacy of modern Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Shortly afterward, a presidential decree transferred the site’s ownership from …

While the West views the fall of the US-backed government as a strategic disaster, Ankara plans to turn the crisis there to its own advantage. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on August 29 that Turkish diplomatic activity will continue in Kabul and all its embassy staff had returned to …

Saudi Arabia’s air defenses intercepted and destroyed several explosive-laden drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi militia toward Khamis Mushayt on Thursday. The Arab coalition said the Iran-backed group continues to target civilians, which is tantamount to war crimes. The Houthis launch the rigged drones toward the Kingdom on a near-daily basis. …

The Syrian government and rebel groups recently reached a cease-fire deal in the southern city that played a large role in the 2011 uprising. Syrian government forces entered Daraa al-Balad on Wednesday as per an agreement with rebel groups in the southern Syrian city. Though there is a cease-fire, one …